This K24 application, "Mentoring Patient-oriented Clinical Investigators in Nephrology" will provide support to allow Dr. Chertow to maintain and enhance his activities as a research mentor for fellows, junior faculty and other trainees in patient-oriented research. Dr. Chertow has had a longstanding interest in training clinical investigators, and in supporting career development of physicians dedicated to careers in academic medicine, particularly women and persons from underrepresented minority groups. He believes that the best measure of his success to date has been the success of his trainees, most of whom have remained in academic medicine and many of whom have received grant support from NIDDK and other institutes at NIH. During the five years requested for the award, Dr. Chertow intends on directly supervising the training of at least two fellows per year and to provide additional support to junior faculty, residents, graduate students and medical students at Stanford. Dr. Manisha Desai, an experienced applied biostatistician, will co-mentor Dr. Chertow's trainees, focusing on complex issues in study design and analysis. Dr. Chertow intends on developing projects with his trainees directed by their individual interests, typically driven by fundamental problems in clinical nephrology. He and Dr. Desai (and other collaborators) will employ a variety of approaches, including those used in clinical epidemiology, health services research, operations research/decision sciences and clinical trials. Dr. Chertow will further develop his mentoring skills working in conjunction with senior faculty at Stanford's Office of Diversity and Leadership. Work products of this training program will include multiple publications with Dr. Chertow's trainees as lead author, and 10 to 12 or more new clinical investigators to re-populate the pool of nephrologists in academic medicine. PROJECT NARRATIVE According to the Program Announcement, the intent of the K24 award is two-fold: 1) to enable mid-career clinician scientists to devote more time and to augment their capabilities in patient-oriented research;and 2) to enable mid-career clinician scientists to mentor new clinical investigators in the conduct of patient-oriented research.